Cheryl Gillan: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the Autism Bill on the first available Friday for private Members' business. So many people are behind the measure that it feels like an Oscars moment—I have to say an awful lot of thank yous. It is the culmination of so much work that it is important to put on record my thanks and the thanks of all those whom the outcome of the process should benefit.
	First, I thank my colleagues. When I drew No. 1 in the ballot, I was inundated with proposals. After making a shortlist, I examined the options in detail. The National Autistic Society and the needs of people with autism touched a chord. When I chose the Bill, I robbed other colleagues of the opportunity to introduce it. I therefore thank my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), who were further down the list and would have been willing to introduce the measure. I thank hon. Members of all parties who back the Bill to the hilt and have given up their precious constituency day to be here. The issue is truly cross-party and all parties seem committed to effecting lasting change for people with autism.
	Since taking on the Bill, I have been deeply encouraged and motivated by the supportive e-mails, letters and other communications that I have received from throughout the country. The groundswell of support for the measure clearly shows that the time has come to right the wrongs that it seeks to tackle, and that change is long overdue.
	I must place on record my gratitude to and admiration for the staff of the National Autistic Society, who have campaigned and negotiated tirelessly in supporting the preparation and development of the Bill, and have encouraged such a measure for many months and years. I will single out some individuals who may be known to some hon. Members; I should like to mention Matthew Downie, Ellen Broome and Gemma Bent, without forgetting Benet and Amanda, and the new chief executive, Mark Lever. I also thank the other 15 organisations that make up the Autism Bill coalition for their backing.
	I extend thanks to the all-party group on autism and its chair, the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), for their excellent work since the group's inception in 2001. The way in which the debate and the understanding of autism have moved forward is due in no small way to the work of the hon. Lady and her colleagues.
	Lastly, I thank my colleague and my friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who has worked tirelessly and for such a long time to improve the outcomes and life chances of people with autism. Her passion on the issue has played no small part in what has been achieved so far, and I decided to try to push the measure through the House using the private Member's Bill process partly because she has announced her intention to leave the House at the end of the Parliament. She will be much missed. She has been a redoubtable friend and champion, and the Bill is partly a tribute to her and her work.
	The Bill therefore has little to do with me and is the outcome of a lot of work by other people. That has led to the privilege that I have today of being able to do something for children and adults with autism and their families and carers, as well as charities and policy makers concerned about the needs of people with autism.

Patrick McLoughlin: Of course, everyone welcomes the Government commitment to take the matter on board. However, does my hon. Friend agree that Second Reading today has led to that commitment? The Bill's going into Committee and coming back to the Floor of the House on Report would maintain the pressure on the Government. It would mean that we continued talking about the Bill for the next three to four months, and that is no bad thing. If any hon. Member speaks at excessive length today to talk out the Bill, he will prevent Parliament from focusing its attention on the measure, and his constituents should note and remember that.

Cheryl Gillan: I would to make just a little progress, but I promise that I will give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
	Autism is a lifelong and disabling condition that affects how a person communicates, and how they relate to and make sense of the world. It is a spectrum disorder that presents in different ways and to varying degrees in each individual. Some people with autism are able to live independent and fulfilling lives with very little support, while others need specialist support throughout their lives. Estimates suggest that one in 100 people has autism, which means that well over 500,000 in the UK have it. It also means that, together with their families, more than 2 million people are affected by autism every day. There are also suggestions that the prevalence of autism is on the increase.
	Autism is a relatively recent diagnosis that was recognised only after world war two. Indeed, Asperger's syndrome became part of international diagnostics manuals only in 1994. That may go some way towards explaining the low public understanding of autism, because although there is a high public recognition of autism and the fact that it is a disability, there is a host of myths and misconceptions about it. One of the most common is that autism affects only children, but one recent estimate put the number of adults with autism at well over 300,000. Often the interest in autism concerns its negative impact and burdens, but there are positive aspects, such as the outstanding talents, which have been considered far less often than the negative impacts. Professor Uta Frith tells me that about 10 per cent. of individuals exhibit special talents, mainly in art, music and memory. Many people also continue to believe, wrongly, that there is a cure for autism.
	What is life like for children with autism? A recent report by the National Autistic Society found that 40 per cent. of children with autism had been bullied, while 27 per cent. had been excluded from school, 42 per cent. reported that they had no friends and 70 per cent. had an accompanying psychiatric condition. The NAS estimates that 63 per cent. of adults with autism do not receive enough support, while 82 per cent. of parents or carers of an autistic child say that their child needs some daily support to live independently.
	Nine out of 10 parents are worried about their child's future, at a stage when they are no longer able to support them. That leads to grief and pain for all involved. One parent said about her daughter:
	"She has quite calmly said that when we die, she plans to kill herself because she knows she will be completely alone and unable to care for herself. She weeps on a daily basis because she is so scared of the future. There is nobody to help her manage her daily life, and more importantly, who will love her when we're gone?"
	Only 15 per cent. of adults with autism are in full-time work and 75 per cent. either do not have any friends or find it very hard to make friends. More than half of adults with autism have also been bullied or harassed as adults. The more I have learned about autism, the more I have come to realise that not enough is known about it. I have also seen that not enough is being done about the needs of these individuals.
	Most local authorities currently do not fulfil their obligations to people with autism. They fail them. According to current Department of Health guidance, local authorities should already be working to assess the needs of adults with autism. However, that is frequently not the reality on the ground.

Cheryl Gillan: The hon. Gentleman has just answered his own question, and I will continue with my speech.
	Of the local authorities surveyed by the National Autistic Society, only two have developed robust ways of collecting and collating information on the population of people with autism. Under 40 per cent.—actually, 39 per cent.—of local authorities have appointed a named team leader with responsibility for autism spectrum disorders, which are known as ASDs. Only 53 per cent. of young people had been issued with transition plans on the move from children's to adult services—a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) earlier—falling to just over one third in mainstream schools. That is illustrated by one local authority, which said:
	"ASD is not 'core business' for learning disability or mental health, so will not be prioritised".
	That is precisely the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow).
	My own county council, Buckinghamshire, has done a piece of work to enable it to record the number of people with Asperger's syndrome and high-functioning autism in our area. In that respect, it is better than many other local authorities, but there is still a long way to go in my own backyard before this information can be used effectively in service planning, let alone to address the urgent needs of this group of people.

Cheryl Gillan: I have a letter from the Assembly, but I do not have it to hand. I have been in correspondence both with the Minister here and the First Minister in Wales, informing them of my Bill and my intention to cover Wales, but also of my willingness to withdraw the particular clause, which was intended effectively as a vehicle to allow me to discuss relevant issues in Wales. This is a devolved matter, but I fully intend to follow up what happens in Wales with the junior Minister who responded to me. I am pleased with progress and it is right to say that the Assembly has been ahead of the curve on this.
	The Minister is also trying to get ahead of the curve. Following protracted negotiations with the National Autistic Society and phone calls with the Minister and his colleague in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I am delighted about that. Ministers have set out a programme of action in response to the proposals in the Bill, reflecting the demands and needs of autistic people and their families. However, the litmus test will be how these measures and the Minister's promises are implemented. Once again, however, I want to put it on the record that I am delighted to have these proposals. I know that the National Autistic Society and other organisations are thrilled that Ministers have moved so far and promised to deliver the actions necessary to fulfil the Bill's aims.
	However, the Minister has confirmed, I think, that he would prefer the Bill not to go into Committee. He also knows that I have to press my case, because it is not right for me to let people with autism down. In his own words, as reported in  The Observer last week,
	"Tens of thousands of people with autism have been repeatedly let down by the social care and health system while Labour has been in power... people with autism have 'not been well served'...The past has not been good enough".
	He also generously conceded that the Bill "has had an impact". I cannot be another person to add to the disappointment of people up and down this country, so I must press my Bill.

Mark Durkan: I congratulate the hon. Lady on her Bill, and indeed everyone else who has contributed to it. It does not extend to Northern Ireland, but I am here to represent the strong will of many people in Northern Ireland that this Bill should succeed. Like other Members, I am continually confronted in my constituency office with parents who should not have to negotiate between services and navigate through systems to find out whether their child has autism. They should be the first to know. That should be a matter of law, and the hon. Lady's Bill is a step in the right direction. A number of years ago, a task force report about Northern Ireland's departments dealing with education, health and—

Janet Dean: I am delighted to be able to speak on Second Reading of this Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on being drawn first in the ballot. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on autism, I also thank the hon. Lady for choosing the subject, and for all her efforts over the past few weeks.
	The results of the pressure created by the Bill are admirable, and are largely due to the culmination of support, awareness-raising and campaigning among the wider autism community over the past decade. Let me specifically acknowledge and thank the National Autistic Society for its commitment to championing the causes of children, adults, parents and carers who are affected by autism throughout the country. They continuously face an uphill battle when seeking support and guidance for those in need. The National Autistic Society has truly set a precedent in providing what is needed and expected: information, advice, advocacy, training and support for individuals and their families who are dealing with autism. The presence of the society, which has over 18,000 members and 80 branches across the United Kingdom, is widely felt in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
	Further thanks are due to the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), who is responsible for care services, and to the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), who is responsible for schools and learners, for the letter that they sent last week outlining the Government's commitment to improving access to services, opportunities and, hopefully, the lives of people with autism. I am delighted to note the Government's commitment to a new strategy, and warmly welcome the latest developments. Indeed, I want to record my thanks for the efforts that Ministers have made to work with the National Autistic Society to develop proposals whose implementation will surely require an extensive collaboration between groups and individuals in Whitehall and beyond to ensure that the needs of individuals affected by autism are truly represented.

Janet Dean: I am mindful of the fact that the National Autistic Society has said
	"the debate on 27 February in the House of Commons, can now be used to secure these Government commitments, and to explore the details of how each measure will be implemented."
	I hope that the Minister's response today will satisfy that requirement.

Janet Dean: I have had many meetings to discuss the prevalence study, and I know that there are valid reasons—which the Minister will give later—for the fact that it has not begun. As chairman of the all-party group, I have been made aware of the facts over recent months.
	I should like to continue with my speech now, because I think it important to mention some of the actions that are necessary and some of those that have already been taken. In a moment, I shall describe the actions taken by the all-party group in the last few years. It is not all negative; there have been some successes. The all-party group has specifically focused on the objective of raising awareness of issues affecting people with autism and Asperger's syndrome, and their families and carers, both in Parliament and through Government policy changes.
	In the past nine years, we have commissioned a number of research studies, including our manifesto for autism in 2003. It set out four general principles and 11 specific objectives to deliver better services and support for people with autism, to be achieved in the following 10 years. It was developed as a result of extensive consultation across the autism movement, with contributions from people with autism, parents, carers, local groups and national organisations.
	The general principles of the manifesto called for the following: all people working with people with autism to be properly trained; research to be carried out, especially into causes, costs and effective interventions on autism; improved service provision for those with autism; and improved tracking and planning of services for people with autism at all local and national agencies. In order to raise awareness in Parliament of the manifesto, the officers of the all-party group on autism tabled an early-day motion to enable Members to put on record their support for those objectives, and the overwhelming support it received was most welcome.
	In October 2008, the all-party group launched "Half way there?", a mid-term review of our manifesto. It found that in the five years since the manifesto was published the profile of autism had risen among both the general public and parliamentarians and that there had been significant progress towards achieving many of the principles and objectives outlined. The Government's announcement of a national strategy for adults with autism has been warmly welcomed by the all-party group, as it removes some of the fundamental obstacles to progress.
	Other key initiatives also delivered progress during the time frame. In the 2005-06 parliamentary Session, the Department of Health published a note to clarify the obligations of local authorities regarding adults with autism. That was the first Government document specifically on adults with autism. It stated:
	"The current position whereby some people with an autistic spectrum disorder 'fall through' local services—in particular between mental health and learning disability services—is unacceptable and contrary to the intention of Government policy."
	Additionally, the launch of a Government-funded Autism Education Trust in November 2007 strengthened the focus on training teaching professionals and aimed to improve education support for all children with autism. In 2008, the Department of Health committed to developing an adult autism strategy, with the creation of a senior autism adviser post within the Department to ensure a continuing focus on, and sufficient attention to, autism. That adviser now provides leadership to local agencies in removing barriers that prevent those with autism from accessing the support and services they need. These Government commitments on autism signalled a real commitment to bring about change. Progress has been hampered, however, by systemic shortcomings in the way information is collected and services are delivered.
	The all-party group's current research takes the form of an inquiry into the transition from school to adulthood for young people with autism. We have received an outstanding response from parents, carers, professionals in the autism sector and from people with autism. People have been extremely keen to tell us about their experiences of transition and the changes they would like to see to improve the services so that young people with autism can fulfil their potential, lead happier lives and make a positive contribution to society. For this reason, I was extremely pleased to read in the Minister's letter of last week that the Government had confirmed their commitment to funding further research on transitions for young people with autism. When only 34 per cent. of students in mainstream schools are being issued with transition plans from children to adult services, that is an essential step forward. Can the Minister reassure me that this money will be ring-fenced to look specifically at improving transition for young people with autism? Additionally, as chair of the all-party group on autism, I ask the Minister if he is willing to share with me that strategy, ahead of publication.
	One of the many themes that appears to be emerging from the all-party group transition inquiry is that, once past school age, many adults with autism—especially those with high-functioning autism or Asperger's—are not deemed eligible for support by social services. I suspect most Members will have come across cases in their constituencies where that has happened. Many of those individuals are told that they do not fit the criteria for support from their local authority's learning disability team, nor do they fit the criteria for the mental health team, and they therefore fall through the gap between the two services. Overall, 63 per cent. of adults with autism say that they do not have enough support to meet their needs. I therefore seek the Minister's clarification about how the new strategy will tackle that issue and so ensure that local authorities and NHS bodies will be obliged to remedy the current failing.

Mark Hunter: I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and the all-party group for the considerable amount of work they have done on this issue. I am struck, however, that she has asked the Minister on a number of occasions for reassurances on progress. Does she not accept that one of the best ways of being reassured about such progress is the passage of this Bill today? If she is still reluctant to back it, will she explain why?

John Bercow: I am extremely grateful; the hon. Lady is generous in giving way. Does she agree with me that, more widely across the field of policy and in other legislation, the Government have a continuing duty to give particular consideration to people on the spectrum? For example, on the Government's proposals for apprenticeships, in which I see much merit, does she agree that there should not be arbitrary academic requirements for accessing those apprenticeships? Such requirements might very well cut off opportunities for people on the autistic spectrum who would be well suited to an apprenticeship, but who might lack the formal academic qualifications that the Government have in mind.

Annette Brooke: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and I am looking forward to some productive discussions about young people with special educational needs in the context of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. There is a great deal to be said for offering alternative routes forward for children and young people with special educational needs, and I hope that successful amendments to the Bill achieve that.
	I was very pleased to serve on the cross-party panel of MPs that was established to conduct hearings on services for disabled children. Of course, I should note that the vice-chairman was the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). Among the horror stories we heard, it came through very clearly that parents felt that they had somehow got through school only to find that, lo and behold, they were faced with the transition stage. Time and time again, we hear that successful outcomes through transition can be achieved only by parents screaming for the services that they need.
	We hear so frequently of the inadequacy of transition planning and communication between children's and adults' services, the lack of co-ordination between different services and agencies, and the lack of assurance of support when a statement comes to an end. We must have multi-agency assessment at the right time, and we need transition plans to be developed with families and appropriate goals to be set. I was recently given a local example when a young person on the autistic spectrum had a college placement and was in a class with a group of young people with mild learning difficulties. One might have though that that would have been all right, but in fact it was not. That young person, because of their difficulties with social skills, could not handle the lack of structure outside class times. It just shows how much thought must go into everything and the special planning for individual needs that is required.

Paul Holmes: My hon. Friend has just given a sequence of facts that exactly mirror and reflect what a constituent of mine has told me. Sarah Oldfield has autistic children, but she also runs a web-based parental support group that extends beyond Chesterfield and Derbyshire across the country. The parents with whom she is involved have made those exact points about the difficulty of getting information when a parent realises that their child is on the autistic disorder spectrum, the difficulty of getting a statement—the arrangements governing statementing can be appalling in some parts of the country and very good in others—the difficulty of getting proper support in mainstream education and the transition issues. Does my hon. Friend agree that the very fact that there is such diversity of provision across the country—from good practice to appalling practice—is why we need a legislative framework such as that proposed in the Bill to try to ensure that there is a more uniform approach? That is why I hope that the Government will adopt the proposals in the Bill.

Mark Hunter: My hon. Friend has made a number of eloquent and supportive comments about what the Bill seeks to achieve and, of course, she speaks for us all in that. Like many hon. Members who have spoken, I have received dozens of cards from constituents who are concerned about this matter. Does my hon. Friend agree that they will struggle to understand why, given the assurances that the Minister has been prepared to give, the Government will none the less not allow the Bill to progress? If they support so many of the initiatives—indeed, all the key initiatives that the Bill seeks to establish—why will they still not allow it to make progress? Is that not the only belt and braces way of ensuring that progress will be made?

Stephen Ladyman: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. What is needed is a commitment of the whole Government to deliver the measures. I also agree with Opposition Members that we will need some provision in legislation to make that happen. That provision might take the form of statutory guidance, or it might be achieved through other mechanisms or other legislation. What we have to debate today and in Committee, if the Bill reaches that stage, is whether this Bill is the legislation that is needed to make that happen, or whether we can achieve it better by some other means.
	I shall listen carefully to the Minister of State when he replies to the debate, because if I do not hear unequivocal guarantees that the Government's promises will have statutory force behind them, I too will want the Bill to complete its parliamentary stages, and I shall work with the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham to get it through this House. If, however, there is a better way to achieve our ends, surely that is what is important.
	My experience in the all-party group and subsequently is that, where the Government are concerned, we have been pushing at an open door. We have heard one or two comments this morning from Opposition Members about measures that have not been delivered, and there are questions to be answered about whether the prevalence study has progressed as fast as we would have liked. I hope that the Minister will give us some reasons why we have not yet seen the results of that study; I suspect that they will have to be very convincing, if he is to please the House today. Other than on those points, however, the Government have a proud record.
	This Government have delivered best practice guidance for schools and education services and for health services on dealing with autistic people. They delivered the autism exemplar of the national service framework for children's health, as well as a raft of other initiatives that have moved the agenda forward. We all agree, however, that no matter how well motivated the Government have been, at local level delivery has fallen short.
	We can all cite from our constituencies examples of parents fighting to get their child the special school place that they know their child needs. Local authorities took cognisance of the fact that this Government had passed legislation to ensure that parents of a disabled child had the right to a mainstream school place for their child, and interpreted the legislation to mean that it removed parents' right to ask for a special school place. The legislation did not do that—the Government have made that clear. Parents have the right to ask for a special school place if that best suits their child, but many local authorities deny them that right and are prepared to take such cases all the way to special educational needs tribunals, where they pay expensive barristers to argue the council's case against a parent, who is doing no more than fighting for their child. We have all seen examples of that and we all want it to stop.
	We all want improvements to be made to the transition from children's services to adult services. If and when the Bill goes into Committee, we must discuss the problems of transition. Now the transition is defined as that which occurs at the age of 18 but, as many of us know, in many local authorities a gap emerges between the ages of 16 and 18: an autistic child goes through the schools service and reaches the age of 16, and the local authority just assumes that there is nothing it need worry about until the autistic person reaches the age of 18 and suddenly becomes the responsibility of adult services.

Angela Browning: The commitment to carry out the study was made in May last year, but I understand that it has not even been commissioned yet.
	As the Minister knows, my comments are not personal to him, but I want to make sure that everybody understands what our experience has been. I have already made this point to the Minister during a meeting of the all-party group on autism. Some years ago—in 2001, I think—the Government produced a document called "Valuing People". In it, they specifically excluded those with Asperger's syndrome from having access to learning disability teams in social services departments. As a result of the furore that followed, the Government issued a Department of Health circular—I have it here—that is written under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. The circular has a lot more clout. It is a regulation written by the Department and circulated to local authorities. In this case, the authorities were told that they were required to make availability assessments for people with Asperger's syndrome. The problem is that a learning disability is defined as having an IQ of less than 70. However, we know that members of the Asperger's syndrome population can be of average if not high intelligence. Indeed, I venture to say that many of our academic university departments—particularly those specialising in maths and physics—are highly populated by people with the syndrome. They are very bright, intelligent people.
	However, the horror of the condition is that those people may have that academic ability but they still have what is referred to as the "triad of impairment". There are three characteristics that are common to all people with autism, wherever they are on the spectrum, including their ability to communicate and the impairment of social imagination and interaction. That means that there is the anomaly of people who at first sight appear to have nothing wrong with them. There is no white stick, but, like an iceberg, two thirds of their lifelong disability is below the surface. We know from well defined research—including papers produced over the years by the National Autistic Society—by many people around the country, that such people, who are bright or of average intelligence, can see how the rest of the world turns and society behaves and try to be part of it. But, however hard they try, there is always a glass wall in front of them that they cannot break through. They are only too acutely aware that friendships, social relationships and all the things that make up how everybody else live their lives are not available to them. If such people try and try and cannot break through that, there are consequences. The consequence, often among adults in their early 20s, who have made the effort to be part of the world and society, is that they develop serous mental health problems—not because they have autism, but because of their effort to try to be part of society. According to one National Autistic Society report, the suicide rate is 8 per cent. among the Asperger's syndrome population. That is incredibly high.
	We are talking about a condition that involves a spectrum and that on first sight might appear to many people not to warrant the support and attention from the statutory services that would help them through. We are also talking about a lifelong condition that is a life-and-death situation. Some of us have constituents who have experienced the death of an autistic child—not because the child had autism, but because life became too unbearable for them and they gave up. We would all give up if we had to experience such a condition without the right support.

Angela Browning: I agree with the hon. Lady, whose knowledge of this subject is of extremely long standing.
	That brings me back full circle to where I started, with the Department of Health circular. I am concerned that in order to deliver his promises on regulation, the Minister is going to lean on section 7 of the 1970 Act, as the Department did back in 2001. The circular that it produced told health and social services that they must now take account of Asperger's syndrome and make assessments for it available. Whenever I am invited to talk to an audience of people interested in autism, I have made a habit of taking about 20 photocopies of this circular with me because increasingly it is totally ignored, yet it has statutory weight behind it. If this is the legislation that the Minister is going to rely on for his regulation, he will have to convince me that he will ensure that this can be implemented. To my certain knowledge—I am not exaggerating—I have given away hundreds of copies of this circular, not just to parents but to professionals, because they were not aware that it existed, and people have been denied access to services as a result. I know that this circular has been used in several court cases that have been brought to try to get packages for people with autism.
	I know that many people in the House want to speak on this subject, although I hope they do not speak for too long. I want to give them a chance to do so but will just finish with this point. The Minister will know that the National Audit Office is concluding an extensive report on the subject of autism. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I was fortunate enough to visit Sir John Bourn and his team in January last year and ask them if they would report on autism, because the PAC has seen some excellent reports from them in recent years on subjects such as strokes and dementia. The PAC is of course interested in value for money in public expenditure, but those reports on dementia and stroke flagged up not only the economics of dealing with this population of people but the gaps in the system that have been mentioned many times today, and the human dimension of not doing something properly.
	I am aware, as I am sure the Minister is, that the report on autism will be published in April. We look forward to its findings. However, if he does not let a Committee sit to scrutinise the Bill, I can assure him that his permanent secretary will appear before the PAC before too long, and we are not an easy bunch when it comes to letting people off the hook. The choice is his—he can either come and face the music in Committee himself or put it off until later in the year and let his permanent secretary do the job for him. I have always believed that ministerial office means that the buck stops on the Minister's desk. It would be very good if he would think again about allowing my hon. Friend's Bill to be scrutinised so that the meaning of the words can be examined and the legislation got right.

Cheryl Gillan: It is not the last word, and I hope that my hon. Friend is not speaking for the last time on autism in this House.
	At a time when we are talking about billions of pounds going into banks for bail-outs, does she agree it is important for people outside this House to understand the financial and economic scale of this problem? In November 2007, the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities produced a report estimating that the aggregate cost of supporting people with autistic spectrum disorder was already at that time £27.5 billion per year in the UK. That is the scale and the order of the issue that we are discussing.

Andrew Miller: I would like to start on the theme that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) just touched on—the causes and prevalence of this condition—because it is an interesting area. Her instinct is probably correct. There is no increase in the prevalence of the condition, but there is undoubtedly an increase in its recognition and diagnosis. That is true of a lot of illnesses. There is a view that certain things happen more frequently today, but it is actually a question of science moving on, and we now have the capacity to diagnose certain illnesses.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on introducing the Bill, and I would like to touch on a couple of things that she and I have done in the past—before she slips out for a well-deserved cup of tea. She and I served on the Select Committee on Science and Technology during our first parliamentary Session, and one of the things we looked at was the development of human genetics. In our third report of the 1994-95 Session, we looked at a huge number of conditions that had by then been identified as having a possible genetic component. The order of incidence of most of these was one in 500, or one in 8,000—for example, one in 500 was diabetes type 1.
	It is now recognised that autism may have a genetic component to it, but it is a condition with an incidence rate of approximately one in 100. Just a few years ago, a Select Committee, with all the expertise that it has at its disposal, did not bother to look at the matter because it had not come to our attention. It has crept up on this House rapidly in recent years, and it is only people such as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, with her personal experience, who have really understood what a terrible condition it is, and how prevalent it is. Whatever our disagreements about tactics today, we need to ensure that we use this debate to help to publicise and improve public understanding of this terrible condition. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham on helping to make that happen.

Andrew Miller: No, I will not give way, because the right hon. Gentleman has annoyed me intensely. I am making a serious point based on my knowledge, and I have no intention of trivialising the debate.
	I indicated in my exchange with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton my experiencing of dealing with people working in high-end occupations who are very difficult to manage. I recall meeting a bright young man who was a leading researcher in a big IT company in California. I shall not mention the name of the company, because his name could be identified if I did. His leadership did not want the delegation that was visiting the company to meet him. When I asked why not, the response was deeply worrying. The company employed him and had respect for his abilities, but his leadership said to me, "You can't meet him because he's an animal." His behaviour was particularly odd, but his technical output was extraordinary. Even in that case, the company had not quite got it right. I see the grimace on the hon. Lady's face, and indeed that is not the way to treat such people. Yes, they should get such high-end jobs, but they need to be treated with dignity. All people with such conditions deserve that.
	Autism is no longer attributed to how parents behave and so on, as it used to be: it is properly recognised. There is some interesting work on this on the websites of the NHS and the World Health Organisation. However, it has come to the fore only recently, because of the advance of medical science. The United Nations General Assembly recognised the condition only on 18 December 2007, as a result of a motion proposed by the state of Qatar, and it is among only three illnesses to have been given world awareness days. Those are hugely important changes. Similarly, developments are occurring locally.
	Let me now refer precisely to the Bill. The problem is real because local authorities and Government agencies let down people on the autistic spectrum. I have already mentioned the courts, the Department for Work and Pensions and others that can do better. The Minister must ensure, by engaging with his colleagues, that other Departments buy into the policy. I agree that the statutory guidance issued under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 works only if it is properly policed and followed through rigorously.
	I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister several specific questions. Will there be extra money next year to ensure that proper research can be undertaken into the prevalence of adult autism in particular? Will guidance issued to local authorities under the Bill or section 7 of the 1970 Act have statutory teeth? As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton pointed out, it should not be a case of simply putting something on the statute book—just having it there does not deliver. Policing legislation properly means resourcing it, and I expect the Minister to confirm that that will happen. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), I am not worried about how things are tactically managed as long as the outcomes are correct. It is important to ascertain how statutory guidance to children's trusts develops. The hon. Member for Buckingham is nodding. As my hon. Friend said, the guidance that we expect to cover children's trusts will—by definition, I hope—cover a range of disorders, but we need to be assured today that that includes autism and the autistic spectrum.
	What themes will the adult statutory guidance cover? Will it cover only the Department of Health, or will it be broader? The Welsh Assembly issue has already been raised in an intervention, so I shall skip that.
	Perhaps the most important matter is transition. Many of us have experienced cases of local authorities, of all political persuasions, failing on transition. Some authorities, which deliver well on children's services, have no provision for proper transition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) pointed out, they can fail even at the basic level of sharing information within departments. What will the guidance do about transition? Will it bring about the sort of change in regime that ensures that there is no longer a chasm between child and adult services?

Anne Milton: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who has worked tirelessly throughout her time in Parliament to introduce measures to support children and adults with autism. Parliament, and Members of Parliament, attract a lot of criticism these days, but the kind of work that she has done is a shining example of what still can be done by this place to improve the lives of others.
	I also congratulate the National Autistic Society on all its work, and the many other charities that are involved in this area. The "I Exist" campaign is one of many that has contributed significantly to raising awareness and achieving some of the changes that are needed. Of course, I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on introducing the Bill. I know how hard she has worked, into the small hours, preparing for today and gathering the cross-party support that we have seen.
	Autism is different, because there is no other condition of such complexity that affects so many, and about which so little is still known. We have heard many statistics today, but one of the most striking was the figure of 2 million. It referred to the 2 million people who are affected by autism, including the parents, the siblings, the carers and the families. No one who is unaffected can truly understand what these people's lives are like: the wide yawning gap they fall through between learning disability and mental health when autism is neither of these. For some parents caring for children with autism, there are no holidays and no time off—just 24-hour care every day of every week. This private Member's Bill provides an opportunity to make that better.
	Shortly after I was elected, I met some parent carers locally who were looking after children with profound disabilities. They felt angry and let down and were utterly exhausted. With the help of Carers Support Guildford and Carers Support Waverley—I pay tribute to their work—we set up a group locally. Carers Support was fantastic; it had an open day last year and intends to repeat it. It provides an opportunity for parents to drop in and meet some of the local charities and statutory services, attend workshops and meet other parents. Not all these parents have children with autism, but many do. Despite the best efforts of charitable and statutory services, many are isolated, lonely and struggling on their own.
	The Bill would change all that. It would combat the lack of information about children and young people with autism. It would give local agencies obligations to include their needs when they plan their services. It would ensure that services around transition—a crucial area as children move towards adult-focused provision—are maintained seamlessly. For young people—and not just those with autism—this period is a trap door through which many fall, as hon. Members have mentioned today. The Bill would ensure that the needs of adults with autism were truly recognised. In a word, it would give people—children and adults—a chance for a good quality of life: the physical and mental well-being that most of us take for granted.
	I would like to highlight a few important issues for the Minister. The section 7 agreements, much debated today, have not worked for people with Asperger's. The 2006 Department of Health guidance requires local authorities to nominate a strategic lead or team on autism, but only 39 per cent. have done so—in other words, more than half have failed to do so. The costs due to loss of income from employment and the direct costs to families are estimated at £27.5 billion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham mentioned.
	Another statistic to pick up is that, because of the lack of support, a third of adults with autism suffer from severe mental health problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton referred to the 8 per cent. who commit suicide. If we drill down into the repercussions, they are truly dreadful. People with autism not only lack support, but suffer from mental health problems—severe mental health problems—on top. We then need to turn our attention to the fact that people with mental health problems have significantly worse physical health. What this third of adults lacking support face is a spiral of deteriorating mental and physical health, dreadful misery, hardship, loneliness, poverty and isolation, sometimes ending in suicide.
	I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) and the all-party parliamentary group. I hope that she will decide to support, not block, this Bill. She failed to explain in her interventions why she objects to the Bill going into Committee. The bottom line is that it will be on the record and easy to see who wanted the Government commitments examined with the Bill as a vehicle and who blocked the Bill and walked away from scrutiny of the Government.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) covered many points and the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) raised the interaction between people with autism and the police, pointing out that the Bill fell short in some ways. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham accepts that, but this is precisely the point. The Committee stage would offer all of us the opportunity to work through the detail and add and subtract in order to get the very best possible services. A Committee stage could only add to services. It would take nothing away. There really is no downside.

Anne Milton: That is an interesting point, which I had intended to discuss later. I can see no way in which proceeding with the Bill would make anything more difficult, and I hope the Minister will take account of that in his response.
	The hon. Member for South Thanet said that he wanted cast-iron guarantees. The only way in which to secure such guarantees, and to secure the very best for people with autism, is to give the Bill a Committee stage. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) referred to the criminal justice system, and pointed out that section 7 orders were effective only if enforced. Along with the hon. Member for South Thanet, who asked for those cast-iron guarantees, I do not doubt the Minister's commitment. It is not that I do not trust him or what he says; I just feel that unless the Bill goes into Committee we will not maintain the impetus or secure the legislation that is needed, because section 7 orders simply are not good enough.
	The details of the Government's proposals need to be examined properly. As we have heard today, debate on them is crucial, and can only enhance the services that are eventually provided. We need an opportunity to go over every detail of the proposals, and to flesh out precisely what they will mean for a child or other person with autism.
	In his letter to all Members, the Minister said that he would launch a consultation on a strategy on services to support adults with autism, that it would have bite, and that he wanted outcomes to be delivered. He said that the strategy would include statutory guidance, which would, however, be subject to consultation and assessment of benefits. I note that slight qualification. Let me say this to the Minister: do not hold back. Join the cross-party consensus on the Bill, and let it go into Committee so that it can be examined in detail. I am not sure that any statutory guidance will work, and I hope that today's debate has raised doubts in the Minister's mind as well.
	The Government have nothing to fear if they have nothing to hide. They should welcome the opportunity that the Bill gives them. If they do not support the Bill, we have to ask why. What exactly is worrying them? Why do they not welcome the opportunity to put their proposals on record and showcase them in the open in Committee? My fear is that they are allowing politics to get in their way and playing a rather shoddy political game because they cannot bear the fact that the Bill has been introduced from the Conservative Benches. That would be a terrible shame, because I see no reason at all for them to block it. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham—backed up by some generous observations from the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)—has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that this is a cross-party issue. It is not about politics; it is about people with autism.
	I ask the Minister to put aside his politics. I ask him not to block the Bill and sell people with autism short, but to put his shoulder to the wheel, welcome the Bill into Committee, and do what is right for the people with autism whom it aims to serve. I ask him not to make this into a fight, but to use his energies to join us all—including his Labour colleagues—so that we can make a real difference.

Liz Blackman: I have huge regard for the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), and I promise him that I will not speak for very long.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on choosing the Bill, running with it, and putting a real Government focus on all the issues that it raises. I also hugely congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning). I suspect that, before I came to the House, she was a lone voice on autism. We have made significant progress over the past few years, however, and she has particularly flagged up the issue of people on the autistic spectrum who happen to be adults. That is what I also wish to focus on. There are two reasons why. First, I am a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, so I cannot stray too far—I am merely moonlighting from the Minister today. Secondly, I recognise that there is a long way to go in respect of adults with autism, as I stated when I had the honour to second the Loyal Address.
	It is worth putting on the record that there has been progress and that the agenda has moved forward, especially since the setting up of the all-party group in 2000 by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), who has spoken in this debate and to whom I pay tribute. From the outset, the group has received invaluable support from the National Autistic Society. Rightly, every Member who has spoken has paid tribute to it, and I do, too; its skills, knowledge, encouragement and utter professionalism are second to none.
	One of the first steps the group took was to survey Members. I recall the feedback from that, and it was quite shocking. A significant number of Members in the year 2000 had not even heard of the word "autism", and quite a few of those who had heard of it had no idea what it was. I recall that a Member—who is still a Member, and actively campaigns on a range of disabilities—asked me at one of the first meetings: "Can it be cured?" We were on—and we remain on—a learning curve. Although autistic spectrum disorder has been known about for some time, it has only come under the spotlight, and therefore been a little more understood, relatively recently.
	Another early move by the group was the launch of its 10-year manifesto in 2003. We were operating then from a pretty low base, but the 2008 "Half way there?" mid-term review makes it clear that there has been progress, although much more in terms of services for children with autism than in terms of adults. There have been one or two green shoots in that regard, however. For me, the most welcome announcement came last year when the Department of Health announced an adult autism strategy and the creation of a senior autism advisory post within the Department to keep the focus constant. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who was a Minister in the Department of Health at that time and who fought very hard to get that full-time expertise.
	We have heard this morning some shocking statistics on adults with autism, such as that 63 per cent. say their needs are not met and only 15 per cent. are in full-time work, out of an estimated population of 300,000. We all know from having met people on the spectrum in our surgeries and communities—and, indeed, in our families—of the entire further dimension of the thousands of adults out there in the country who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50, 60s and way beyond who have never been diagnosed.
	I welcome the strategy—and particularly the announcements alongside it from my hon. Friend the Minister, and the proposed process to achieve those outcomes that will make a difference—and so does the NAS. The strategy sits alongside other announcements that feed into the process. I know this has been mentioned several times, and that the Minister will cover it when he winds up the debate, but I want to say that the prevalence study must go ahead as we have to get a grip of the quantity issue.
	Publishing the good practice commissioning guidance in April is also a very good step. However, a note should go with it to every authority and NHS body saying that a strategy with teeth—however it arrives—is coming down the track, and that this guidance should not just be stuck on a shelf; people should actively get on with it. The National Audit Office study on the extent of existing services and how they meet the needs of adults regarding health, social care, employment and carers is timely in the context of this process.
	The scope of the strategy itself has to be broad enough to deliver the service——which is currently not being delivered in a comprehensive way——that we want to see. I want my hon. Friend the Minister to assure me on this issue and to be guided by those whom he asked to define the boundaries. The question of scope is extremely important; it can be narrowed but it cannot be widened, so let us have everything of concern in that remit as we go forward.
	Nobody has said very much today about the process that the Government intend. When I spoke to the Minister privately on seeing this debate coming up, I was particularly interested in the question of who was going to be guiding the process. The external reference group is incredibly impressive. It consists of the chief executive of the NAS, Mark Lever; parents; people with autism; local authorities; mental health services; the voluntary sector and academics. The group needs to be as wide as that because we have to have that expertise in this process. Autism is a hidden disability and the issue is as much about culture as it is about practice and making practice work.
	Reference has been made to Jobcentre Plus. The steering group is intergovernmental and will include the Departments of Health, for Children, Schools and Families, and for Work and Pensions—the latter will cover Jobcentre Plus—and, again, Mark Lever. The range of consultees needs to be extremely wide, and there must be a place for Members of this House in the group. It is crucial that they are part of the consultation.
	We have identified some of the issues on which improvement is really needed. Data collection is crucial. There is the question of people falling into the gap—of 52 per cent. of people with particularly high-functioning autism being told by mental health and learning disability teams that they do not fit the bill. That is shocking.

Oliver Letwin: I want to make an extremely brief speech. The debate today has not actually been about the Autism Bill, and I have not yet heard anybody who suggests that it is anything other than a very good idea. The subject of the debate has been about whether the Bill is necessary, about the Minister's claim in his letter, to which I referred in an earlier intervention, that
	"Legislation could make delivery of change more difficult",
	and about whether the Minister has a better method of doing it through statutory guidance. The Minister's claim is that there will be statutory guidance, that there will be money behind it, as detailed in his letter, and that it will be a more effective method.
	First, there is no evidence that such a method will be more effective. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who has a long record of interest in these matters, is extremely clear, as I have been from my constituency activities, that the existing statutory guidance often produces no effect. Why not? Many of those on the ground do not know that it exists. My hon. Friend pointed out that if it is invoked in court it is effective, but the problem is that the Department conspires through inaction to allow it not to be known by many of those on the ground. That would probably also be true of further statutory guidance.
	Secondly, and more importantly, there will probably never be any statutory guidance or, if there is, it will probably take a very long time. Why do I say that? I accept that I am being slightly more rebarbative that some of my colleagues, who have been very generous to the Minister, but I have some personal experience of this in the recent past. I spent some hundreds of hours on the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 and we negotiated extensively with a parallel and equally admirable and well-intentioned junior Minister. The officials in the Department were extremely resistant to the Act and a series of documented assurances were reported in  Hansard, each of which has been falsified. In particular, an assurance was given that a detailed spending assessment would be produced for all the money spent by central Government in every locality in Britain. That has not been produced. Not only has it not been produced, but a total travesty of that assurance has been produced. Are the Government embarrassed? Not in the least. Where is the junior Minister? Somewhere else. What is the Secretary of State saying? Nothing. She will not attend meetings or answer questions.
	To quote an earlier intervention during a speech by a Labour Member, "cast-iron" guarantees were given but they have been falsified in practice. Does that and can that apply to the present case? Certainly it can. We have the evidence of the prevalence studies, which have not happened. No mention of them is made in the Minister's letter. There is no explanation of why the prevalence studies have not happened.
	The fact is that the junior Minister does not have the capacity to deliver, the Department shows no sign of the will to deliver and—this is my main point—however well-intentioned the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families are, the Government have all sorts of other priorities. I do not blame them for that. We are in the midst of an enormous national crisis.
	Only one person matters in this Government. It is usually the case that the one person who most matters in a Government is the Prime Minister, but in this Government only one person matters and that is the Prime Minister. We have had neither sight nor sound of the Prime Minister's being involved in this matter, and I would not expect that, because he is concerned with a major national crisis. The idea that the junior Minister can stand at the Dispatch Box and guarantee to the House that provisions including the expenditure of significant sums of money, legislative time and his Department will be delivered is plainly ludicrous. We do not know whether they can be delivered and the Minister does not know whether they can be delivered.
	I now come to my fourth and final point. The truth is that if the Government as a whole were genuinely signed up to delivering what the Minister says that he wants to deliver, they would allow the Bill not only to go into Committee, but to come out of Committee and to become an Act. All it does is seek to deliver the same things as the Minister says that he wants by other means to deliver. Nothing about the Bill would prevent the Minister from issuing statutory or other guidance if he wished to do so once the Bill was an Act. The only basis that the Minister has for trying to prevent the Bill from becoming an Act is the statement in his letter that
	"Legislation could make delivery of change more difficult".
	I have yet to understand on what basis such an assertion could be made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) said during her excellent speech, there is no evidence that legislation will make the delivery of change more difficult. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that legislation will make the delivery of change easier. Why? Because there will be better understanding on the ground of what is required; the Government will be subject to a stronger requirement to enforce what is required; and, in the final analysis, it will be easier for people to take cases to lawyers and the courts, because what is required will be clear in primary statute.
	The facts are that the Minister has no argument, no effective jurisdiction and no guarantee, he cannot offer the House a guarantee and he has no logic to back him up, other than the logic of trying to make sure that the Government are not constrained to do the things they say they want to do. There is therefore no reason for the House to believe that they will do those things better without the legislation than they will with it. I hope that my Conservative colleagues and others in all parts of the House who share our ambitions will support the Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) has rightly introduced.

Joan Humble: Like many others, I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on choosing this important subject for her private Member's Bill. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), the present chairman of the all-party group on autism, and its previous chairmen, my hon. Friends the Members for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) and for Erewash (Liz Blackman), both of whom have contributed to the debate.
	The all-party group, of which I, too, am a member, has done an amazing amount of work in recent years, especially in producing the autism manifesto and now in continuing to press the Government to make the improvements that the group has identified, with the support of the National Autistic Society. The NAS has played a key role in raising awareness of autism and of the need to proceed with that agenda.
	I also congratulate the Minister and his colleagues on the many initiatives introduced in recent years and especially his new announcements in response to the Bill. As Mark Lever, chief executive of the NAS, says in his letter, the measures set out by Ministers cover all aspects of the Autism Bill. So why are we still here debating the Bill? We are debating it—I say to the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) that I intend to discuss the Bill—because we are determined to get it right this time. That is why we making our comments in this debate and why we are seeking reassurances from the Minister.
	We know from our constituency experience the difficulties encountered by many families who have children with autism, especially if those children are adults, in accessing appropriate services. I know it also as a result of the work that I did with my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) on the parliamentary hearings on the review of services for children with disabilities. Children with autism and their parents came to us and explained the problems they had encountered at a series of levels, from getting the initial diagnosis through getting the health care and support they needed and then getting appropriate education provision. Above all, they described the real problems with the transition from children's services to adult services. We need to get this right, because, as other speakers have said, although there are examples of good practice, gaps in provision remain and we have to fill them.

Joan Humble: I am sure that there are many colleagues on both sides of the Chamber who want to make points that the Minister could then address—

John Bercow: I would like to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on introducing the Bill, and on the way in which she spoke this morning—eloquently, sincerely, knowledgeably, movingly and with the legendary courtesy for which I think I can safely say she is renowned in all parts of the House. I would like to echo, too, the tribute that she and others have rightly paid to the National Autistic Society, TreeHouse and the miscellany of other organisations—13, I think—that form part of the coalition to drive forward the Bill.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), in his incisive fashion, made a completely unanswerable case for the Bill to go into Committee. For the avoidance of doubt, I say to the Minister of State with responsibility for health and social care, whose integrity and commitment he knows I do not doubt for a moment, that the reason we need these measures in legislative form is simply stated. We are talking about a minority of people. They are an important minority and an increasingly articulately represented minority, but a minority nevertheless. Unless there is statutory provision for their entitlements, the danger is that, inadvertently if not calculatedly, because of all the other priorities of local, national, statutory and voluntary agencies, the interests and needs of the autistic child, young person or adult will tend overwhelmingly to be either relegated or ignored. That is why, in the absence of a critical mass of such people to trigger change on a regular basis, we need to take the opportunity to proceed with the Bill and to extract a series of legislative commitments. That is the statutory fail-safe that the autistic community seeks and is entitled to receive.
	I want to be brief, and specifically to pose a series of questions to the Minister, with whom I have engaged over a long period on issues of this kind, and in whose answers I am profoundly interested. First, the Minister has said that the Government will commit £200,000 from the transition support programme to the funding of research into transition from childhood to adult services for people on the autistic spectrum. Will the Minister today guarantee in terms that that £200,000 will be explicitly ring-fenced for that purpose and that purpose alone? Would he be good enough to tell me and the House when the money will be made available, through whom it will be channelled, and what assessment of the nature, extent and results of the work will be made?
	Secondly, the issue of training has rightly been addressed by the Minister and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He will know that in practice it has often been difficult to get explicit commitments on particular training programmes. Will the Minister guarantee to meet the professional bodies to advise on how, in practice, the training commitment can be taken forward, and will he bear in mind that there is a difference between saying that there are opportunities for, and an availability of, training on the one hand, and saying that in practice the children's work force, the health service work force and the other individuals who are relevant to delivering better services will attend training courses with the back-up funding of staff required to translate the aspiration for training into the reality we seek?
	Thirdly, the draft strategy in April and the intended final autism strategy in December are an ambitious project. I do not sniff at it, but it is an ambitious project with a tight time scale. Can the Minister assure the House today that the time scale is not such as to inhibit the strategy, or to put it another way, can he confirm that the strategy will be absolutely comprehensive, so that we do not go full circle on the issue?
	Fourthly, I ask the Minister in all courtesy to make one other commitment that would offer some reassurance. Would he undertake in his contribution to answer every point that has been made by a right hon. or hon. Member today, and in so far as time prevents him doing so, would he be good enough to undertake to write to Members whose questions or challenges he did not answer, and to place a copy of what I am sure will be an illuminating and comprehensive reply in the Library?
	I conclude by saying that there are two reasons why we have to address these issues, rather in the superb manner that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham did, and do so in legislation. First, it says something important about the political DNA of our society if we are prepared to commit to a vulnerable section of the population whose needs and interests have for too long, under successive Governments, been inadequately recognised. Secondly, it is not just a matter of being nice, decent and compassionate. It is also a matter of the authentic self-interest of UK plc. If we can address the problems, deficits, weaknesses and denials of opportunity from which people on the autism spectrum suffer, we will be playing into many other agendas as well. Tackling those issues is relevant to the fight against anti-social behaviour and the challenge of improving mental health. It is important to the objective of securing better educational outcomes and bolstering the qualifications, training and expertise of the work force. It is profoundly relevant to the future prosperity of UK plc in an age in which a job for life is a relic of the past and the premium placed on knowledge, skills, practicality and the ability to communicate and engage is greater than ever before. I look forward with interest and respect to what I am sure will be a comprehensive response from the Minister.

Sharon Hodgson: I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), although his speech was rather shorter than I would have liked. I enjoy his speeches, but I totally understand why he kept his remarks short. I do not intend to speak at great length, but I am a sponsor of the Bill, and anybody who knows me will know that I take a great interest in special educational needs and disability. I have therefore prepared a thorough contribution, and I will resent any accusations that I am playing Friday games, which I am certainly not.
	I am delighted to be able to speak in the debate, and I offer my warmest congratulations to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on her success in the ballot and, more importantly, on her excellent choice of topic for her private Member's Bill. I was lucky enough to find myself drawn second in the ballot last year, and I know not only how instantaneously popular a Member who is successful in the ballot becomes but the deluge of work that accompanies the privilege.
	The hon. Lady might agree that choosing a Bill is difficult. I see it as a choice between plaudits and pragmatism, although that is not to say that the two are mutually exclusive. She has shown great skill and endeavour in achieving what I believe to be an excellent package of measures to support those in our society with autism, and I congratulate her on doing so. Incidentally, I watched her on "Question Time" last night, and I thought that she looked remarkably perky this morning considering the busy schedule that she has had this week. I commend her for her warm and moving comments on that programme about Jade Goody, with which I concur entirely.
	When given the opportunity to introduce a private Member's Bill, it is easy to shoot for the stars, but success is often found when our feet remain a bit closer to the ground. We all come into politics to try to make a difference, and the consequences of the hon. Lady's work will have a positive impact on thousands of lives and families up and down the country in the years to come.
	The case for more action on autism is clear-cut and compelling. It is a condition that affects how people relate to the world around them, as numerous Members have said. People with autism can find it difficult to empathise and communicate with others. Communication, interaction and imagination can all be difficult. It can also have other behavioural consequences such as a love of routines as well as learning disabilities. It is understandable that society is lagging behind in fully supporting and including those with autism, given that they often find it difficult to express for themselves the steps that would improve their quality of life and access to wider opportunities.
	Public understanding has been stinted because autism exists on a spectrum and is manifested in varying degrees. Today marks acknowledgement of the lack of information about autism and the lack of awareness by schools, the Government and members of the public. No studies have been carried out on adults to ascertain the prevalence of autism. The only existing estimates are worked out from the 2001 census. As part of the National Autistic Society's "I Exist" campaign, I contacted my local authorities to find out how many adults with autism lived in each of them. One did not hold such information and the other could tell me only how many attended a specialist day centre—fewer than 20, if I remember correctly. That is obviously not representative of the 1 per cent. of society that we understand to be autistic.
	We should not—thanks to today's debate, we cannot—downplay the wider impact of autism. Approximately 500,000 people are estimated to have autism and around 2.3 million people are affected by it. They include family members and professionals, who are involved in the care of people with autism. Yet a deficiency remains in the information that the powers that be hold about the prevalence of autism among adults and children and its effects on them.
	When I was researching my private Member's Bill, the autism charity, TreeHouse, researched a series of parliamentary questions from the past 10 years. The results show that 551 questions were asked about autism, relating mostly to health and education. The questions reflect the consensus about the great need for diagnosis, research, treatment and data collection. The report recommends that the Government consider collecting information centrally to gain an understanding of local authorities' needs. Although the report was originally published to support the aims of my private Member's Bill—now the Special Educational Needs (Information) Act 2008—it is clear from the National Autistic Society's "I Exist" campaign that concerns remain about the quality and quantity of the data that are available and their use to benefit those on the autistic spectrum.
	Lack of information has been highlighted through a difficulty in diagnosis in schools. Forty per cent. of all children with autism wait more than three years for a clear diagnosis. Boys are four times more likely to develop autism than girls. The condition can also lead to behavioural difficulties, and 25 per cent. of children with an autistic spectrum disorder have been excluded from school at least once.
	More than 40 per cent. of children with autism have been bullied at school. According to an Office for National Statistics 2005 study, 42 per cent. of children with autism have no friends, compared with only 1 per cent. of other children. Recognition of those saddening and shocking statistics has already led to action by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
	In May 2008, the Department published guidance on how to prevent and tackle the bullying of children with special educational needs and disabilities. The National Autistic Society was consulted about developing the guidance, and one of the case studies focuses on an autistic pupil being provoked by bullies and how a school successfully responded to that.
	The Department funds the Anti-Bullying Alliance and the national strategies to work with local authorities and schools to ensure that the guidance is effectively implemented. It is also producing a DVD to be launched in 2009 for use in schools to show why pupils should not bully disabled peers. I know that the Department is already working with the National Autistic Society, Mencap and other disability groups to examine the characteristics of young people who are bullied, and it will publish a report in the autumn.
	The existing statistics also reveal an urgent need to focus on training staff in our schools to identify children with autism accurately. I was pleased to secure a commitment from Ministers to undertake a review of the effectiveness of the inclusion development programme in upskilling teachers to support the needs of SEN pupils. The university of Warwick will independently evaluate the use of the IDP materials, reporting in 2011, with interim reports in the meantime, and I welcome that action from the Government, which shows a commitment to finding out what is working and what is not.
	In addition, in June 2008, the Training and Development Agency launched a comprehensive training resource for providers of undergraduate primary initial teacher training. It included 18 taught sessions, including one specifically focused on recognising and supporting children with autism. This summer, the TDA will launch a resource for secondary initial teacher training, which will include a taught session on autism and self-study tasks for primary and secondary postgraduate certificate in education courses covering the same ground. A similar approach will be taken in materials for newly qualified teachers, which are due out next January. Work is under way, therefore, but we all agree that it is not enough.
	A lack of public knowledge about autism has led to a general misunderstanding of the condition, which has often been left aside. Parents and people with autism are frequently confronted with a lack of understanding of autism. Improved data collection would lead to a better understanding among organisations, educational services and local authorities. Such information would enable a stronger evidence base for long-term planning and help to allay concerns that the existing approach is too short-sighted.
	We are all aware of the patchwork quilt of provision that affects services. There is no guarantee that a child with autism in one area will get the same quality of service as a child with autism 10 miles down the road. Better information can help to ensure an even geographical spread of services. Parents giving feedback to TreeHouse shared fears that children with autism would fall through the net because of a lack of co-ordination among services, the inadequacy of transitional arrangements between children's and adult autism services, and a lack of education and employment opportunities. That is why there is a clear case to be made for local authorities and patient care trusts to work together to secure the best interests of children.
	The Autism Education Trust was launched in November 2007 with funding from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Its role is to raise awareness of the importance of appropriate educational provision for children with autism, to bring organisations in the autism education sector together and to include children and young people, together with their families, in the planning of improvements in autism education. That fantastic remit is capable of delivering fantastic results. The Autism Education Trust held its first national conference yesterday, which I understand was well received, and it will have my full support in the years ahead.
	Although education dominates much of the discussion about how to support those with autism and improve their life chances, there are people of all ages on the autistic spectrum. Finding employment is often difficult. It is estimated that there are about 332,600 people of working age in the UK with an autism spectrum disorder. Of that number, just under half are of average or above average intelligence. Despite that, research by the National Autistic Society has shown that only 6 per cent. of all people with an ASD have full-time paid employment and that only 12 per cent. of those with high functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome have full-time jobs.
	The problems with social interaction can prove a barrier to people searching for a job. The National Autistic Society suggests that the best way to recruit is not always by through an interview, but through a work trial. Not enough is known about the help that is available to employers who take on a person with a disability. The DWP access to work programme aims to meet the additional employment costs arising from disability, and there are other schemes out there to help. However, we need to let potential employers know about it. We also have to burst the myths about autism to secure fairer access to the workplace.
	There are many myths about autism. One quarter of people think that it is mostly children who are affected, yet we know that in an average constituency, around 3,000 people will have autism. Many people think that autism sufferers have special abilities in English or maths, but this is normally untrue. Only two in five people know that there is no cure for autism.
	As I mentioned earlier, last year the National Autistic Society launched the "I Exist" campaign, which highlighted the lack of information available for adults and the misconceptions about autism, which can lead to poor treatment in society. The aim of the campaign was to make people think differently about autism. It involved adverts, campaigning and sending information to local and national Government. But how long will it take for people to begin to think about people with autism differently?
	Given the low numbers of adults with autism in employment, TreeHouse estimates that the annual cost of autism to the UK is £27.5 billion, as the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who is not in her place now, said. It is unacceptable—not just for our society and our economy, but for the thousands of lives that are not being fulfilled—that those who can work are unable to do so because of societal ignorance. Given all the recognised problems that we face, the focus that the Bill places on the shortfall in service provision for people with autism is as timely as it is welcome.
	The Bill introduces a requirement for the collection of data on people with autism by local authorities. Data on children will be registered annually by each local authority, and shared with the relevant partners, as set out in the Children Act 2004. This will allow for local flexibility. The Bill also places on the Secretary of State a duty to advance the provision of services by local authorities and the NHS, and requires local authorities to work for a smooth transition from child to adult autism services, allowing for data collection by children's services to be used for adults.
	The Bill also covers the provision of staff to deal with child autism, and provides for diagnostic services for adults, work force training requirements and sharing good practice at regional and national levels. Only two local authorities currently have a system in place to collect the relevant information, and the NHS and local authorities must, as far as possible, work to promote independent living for people with autism. All of this is needed. As I have already said, I hope that the requirements to collect data will be fulfilled in a way that makes constructive use of the Special Educational Needs (Information) Act 2008, which will mean that data collected in our schools do not simply fall into a void once children leave school.
	The impetus that the Government are placing on co-operation between local authorities and primary care trusts will help to ensure appropriate data sharing. This stage of transition is crucial in ensuring that the benefits of identification and support are not lost, which is why an extra £200,000 is being found for more research into the subject, to ensure a good transition between these groups. With improvements in teaching and many of the obligations set out in the child health strategy, there will also be a growing focus on earlier identification and intervention.
	Wider measures, including child and adult mental health services, services for children with speech, language and communication difficulties, and the £770 million invested in the Aiming Higher for Disabled Children programme, will all help to improve the status quo. At this point, I would like to commend the sterling work done by the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) on the Bercow review.
	Further improvements must come through a greater understanding of what achieves the best results. This is a problem that needs to be tackled, and it involves engaging with local communities, voluntary sector experts and carers to work out strategies that can overcome the existing difficulties with local information collection. Joint strategic needs assessments will be critical in providing better services for people with autism, and I hope that the Government can offer an assurance that autism, as well as other high-incidence special educational needs, can and will be included in such assessments.
	I understand that Ministers have undertaken to look at issuing guidance that will address concerns about the commissioning of appropriate services and consultation across the full autism spectrum. I know that one of the bones of contention over the Bill concerns the teeth of the national strategy for autism. That is why I am pleased that the National Autistic Society will now be so closely involved with the development of such a strategy.
	Following the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, the Department for Children, Schools and Families will offer consultation on new regulations and statutory guidance for children and young people's plans. This will ensure that the needs of all disabled children are properly addressed. The Bill deals not only with autism, but with other special educational needs. I know that the National Autistic Society has been keen to confirm that there will be specific mention of autism in such guidance, and my understanding—which perhaps the Minister could confirm, if he has heard me—is that there will be. I am more than happy to take him at his word on this one.
	The Government have made a far-reaching and thorough series of commitments, which could not have happened without the groundswell of support led by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham and driven by the National Autistic Society. I know that thousands of people have lobbied their MPs on this matter, and I congratulate everyone involved. This is a great achievement, and the measures that the Government have set out make it clear that they have listened to what is needed.
	The Government aim to drive improvements on local services. There is not one aim of this Bill of which I do not approve, and I am delighted that the National Autistic Society and TreeHouse are so pleased with what this process has secured. Of course, one or two things need ironing out of the commitments that we have been given. The situation relating to section 7 guidance under the Local Authorities Social Services Act 1970 is unclear, and we will need to give greater clarity as to how it should be interpreted. I share the hope—and, in fact, fully believe—that the national autism strategy will be comprehensive and that it will deliver the opportunities of the 21st century to those with autism. It should contain references to the fact that all children on the autism spectrum, including those with Asperger's, need to be on the register for children with disabilities.
	In the light of the Government's proposed measures, I wonder whether the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, along with the Minister, might like to consider one or two questions, whose answers could set a precedent and carry ramifications for any future Government. It is right for the Bill to prioritise needs, but is it right to prioritise them with a Bill that deals with a single impairment, when we could help many more people by tackling the barriers to learning and life that people with a wide range of disabilities and special educational needs need to overcome? Much has already been achieved by the Bill and Second Reading is not yet complete; and I do not think that so much success has been won at such an early stage before.
	I am delighted that the need to address weaknesses in services for people with autism has been highlighted. It is gratifying to see that the need for better information has been emphasised yet again and I cannot stress enough the urgency with which those responsible for implementing change must ensure that information held locally is used locally in order to deliver improvements nationally.
	Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham on her choice of Bill and on what she has achieved for those with autism. I also congratulate Ministers on their willingness to accept that more can be done, and on setting out to get it done as soon as possible. I know from my own experience last year how much work goes into such a process, and all involved deserve a big "well done". We must remember, however, that the real winners from today and from the process of the last few weeks and the weeks to come will be the hundreds of thousands of people with autism, for whom the 21st century should now seem a whole lot brighter.

Phil Hope: First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on securing this Second Reading for her Bill. As many Members have already remarked, her efforts have built on those of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who introduced a similar ten-minute Bill previously.
	On behalf of every Member, I want to say that we have had a very meaningful debate this morning. Every Member with an interest in these matters wants to thank the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham for raising the profile of this important issue. I also want to thank the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), who could not attend today. I have worked closely with her to develop the Government's proposals in this area. Between us and across our respective Departments, the Government certainly need no persuading of the need for action on autism.
	Let me thank Members of all parties who have spoken—some have only been able to intervene—with passion and commitment. What they said has sometimes been based on their personal experiences, sometimes on the views of their constituents who have autism and their families and carers. Quite rightly, Members have called for more to be done in their constituencies. I particularly congratulate Members who have been or are involved in or have chaired the all-party group on autism: my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), a former Minister, and my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman).
	It is invidious to name specific MPs in a debate, and the quality and calibre of this morning's debate has, I think, been quite outstanding. Just as MPs here today have shown themselves to be steadfast champions of a very just cause, I hope that every MP will follow their lead in pressing for change at every level. I certainly want to take the opportunity, like others this morning, to record my thanks to the third sector organisations that provide services, advise on policy and campaign for change. I particularly thank the National Autistic Society, with which both the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families have worked in close partnership to develop the new policies that we have the opportunity to debate today.
	I start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham and many other Members who have spoken on a great many of the points raised in contributions. I want to respond to the specific points that the hon. Lady and others have mentioned, but more than that, I want to take the opportunity to give the cast-iron reassurances about the Government's intentions that Members have requested from me. I shall do that by describing our autism strategy in detail. I want to put on record what that strategy will contain, what it will achieve and how we will ensure that it delivers on its promise. I am not sure which Member said "We are all practical politicians and we want to establish the best way to proceed in order to do what works", but that is absolutely right. We need to ask what action we can take following today's debate to assure individuals with autism, their families and their carers that we are taking action swiftly and effectively to address the concerns before us.

Phil Hope: My hon. Friend was eloquent earlier in describing excellent practice not just around the country generally, but in her constituency in particular. We want that excellent practice to be replicated throughout the country, so that pockets of excellence become the mainstream norm in meeting the needs of adults with autism. The new strategy that we will launch in April will be subject to a major consultation in which many such questions and issues can be addressed. Once the strategy has been developed we will be able to issue statutory guidance based on it, enabling every local authority to understand its obligations and the work that it must do to assess need, provide services, involve people in the development of their local strategies, and improve their work forces.

Phil Hope: If this Bill proceeds to Committee, I cannot say what effect that will have because we do not know what the outcome of the debate there will be, but what I can say is that all those measures that I have written to every Member about, and that I wish to repeat here at the Dispatch Box, are cross-Government policy—they are that which we wish to implement as a Government. I also have to say how inordinately proud I am to be the Minister of State for care services announcing these measures—building on the success of the past, which I wish to refer to later—and putting forward what I think will make 2009 a year of profound, massive and substantial advances in meeting, and developing services to meet, the needs of adults and children with autism, their families and their carers.
	As a starting point, I want to describe an experience that made a great impression on me, and I hope it will have a similar effect on other Members. Several Members have spoken very eloquently about why the matters under discussion are important. Earlier this week, I visited an arts exhibition that showcased the winners of the National Autistic Society "I Exist" creativity competition—various Members have referred to this excellent campaign. All the winners have work shown at the exhibition and they all deserve tremendous credit, but I was particularly struck by one image. It was a photograph by a gentleman called Danny, whom I was lucky enough to meet on the day. He is 48 and has Asperger's syndrome, and he is clearly a hugely talented photographer. His winning picture is truly exceptional. In the foreground, there are four children, all silhouetted, and partially shrouded by a thick mist so that it is not quite clear what is going on in the picture: are these children sheltering from something, or queuing, or playing? If we look closely, however, we can just make out other people in the background—a group of adults, some of them so faint they look like ghosts in the swirls of the mist. The impression of this photograph is enigmatic, haunting, exotic and thoroughly mesmerising—it is a brilliant piece of photography, and a deserving winner.
	However, what really hit home—what knocked me for six, in fact—was Danny's reply when I asked him what inspired him to take that shot. He said that the image summed up his life with autism. The photograph, by the way, is called "Children in the mist", and that, for me, sums up why we need more action on autism. That is the human cry that I believe we must answer. We must bring people like Danny out of the mist. We must provide new clarity, confidence and certainty to their lives. We must help them to escape the feelings of isolation and fear and the dislocation that that picture embodies. I am sure that no one in this House would disagree with that aim. It is what the hon. Lady's Bill seeks to achieve and that is entirely commendable, but the question is, what is the right way forward?
	I want to describe a fuller picture of what we are doing, but today's debate has focused on the measures we have recently announced—we have just been having an exchange about those—to drive forward our plans for improving the lives of children and adults with autism and their families. The hon. Lady said that she was delighted and thrilled by those measures, and I am glad that she said that. I will go into them in more detail later, but let me give a summary of the measures as they stand.
	First, as I have said, new statutory guidance is promised for children and young people's plans that will specifically refer to children on the autistic spectrum, and which will flow from the enactment of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. We want to create robust systems to ensure that data collected on children with autism are then shared with adult social services to bridge that transition gap. There will be extra resources—an issue on which the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) pressed me. There will be £200,000 to research the challenges faced by young people with autism in their transition to adulthood, and yes, we will of course make sure that those resources are spent on that task.

Phil Hope: We will be spending that money this year. The hon. Gentleman can get further details on exactly when and how from my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North, who is responsible for that issue in the Department for Children, Schools and Families. That is an important area of expenditure for researching the challenges faced by young people with autism in their transition to adulthood.
	There is extra funding next year for the Autism Education Trust—a total of £500,000 in 2009-10—to promote better commissioning skills among local authorities and primary care trusts, particularly in the field of education. There is also funding—£300,000—to research the prevalence of autism among adults. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) and others, we will be researching that prevalence because unless we have that information, how can we plan the way forward? In April, we will publish new commissioning guidance for PCTs and local authorities on the strategic planning of health and social care services to meet the needs of adults with autism. I make that point because of the importance that others have placed on the need to join up health and social care, making sure that the organisations are working together.
	In April, we will launch the consultation on a new national strategy for adults with autism. There will be four pillars of reform in that strategy. They have been developed not by the Government but by an expert external reference group to which other Members have referred, led by Mark Lever, the chief executive of the National Autistic Society. The four pillars of reform for adults with autism are, first, better specialist and mainstream health services, and secondly, tackling social exclusion, including employment. I will say more about how we go about that; some excellent examples were given earlier of activities to help adults with autism get into voluntary and paid work. The third pillar is improved choice and control for adults with autism, not least through the much better personalising of services—we discussed individual budgets and the value that they bring—and the fourth is improving the skills and knowledge of the staff who work with adults with autism.

Phil Hope: I agree—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. That is why we intend to issue statutory guidance for children and young people's plans as part of the Apprenticeships Bill—if I can use that shorthand. Statutory guidance will also flow from the national strategy for adults with autism, which we will launch in April.

Henry Bellingham: It is refreshing and encouraging to hear that, but there is a huge amount of detail that needs to be discussed. Surely that would best be done during Committee stage?

Russell Brown: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. On occasion unsolicited credit card cheques arrive with individuals who do not even have credit cards, so they represent an offer to people who may not yet be involved in credit. I have already put it on record that I am more than willing to see amendments tabled if absolutely necessary and if that tidies up the Bill. Let me also say that I am not being critical of the Clerks, who gave magnificent assistance with this.
	I had hoped that the Bill would cover 100 per cent. mortgages, but I thought it appropriate to remove that aspect because in the past week to 10 days much has been said about what level of mortgages should be offered, especially to first-time buyers. However, the issue of unsolicited credit charge cheques remains. Unlike credit cards, these cheques are not subject to protection under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Individuals have found, to their great cost, that as well as interest rate levels being much higher, the interest kicks in as from the time that the cheque is cashed.

William Cash: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that there is an increasing tendency among credit card companies, irrespective of the fact that interest rates have now dropped to 1 per cent., to increase dramatically the amount on credit cards? People who are already in difficulties over credit card payments are finding the situation absolutely intolerable. Would he want to cover that in his Bill if it gets into Committee, if it ever does?

Barry Gardiner: The stone age did not end because of a lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil. In fact, the oil age is clearly already coming to a close, and three things have precipitated that. First, we have either just arrived at, or, as is more likely, just passed peak oil—the point on the Hubbard curve at which the maximum rate of global production has been reached. Secondly, and directly related to that, is the challenge of climate change and the need to stabilise average global temperatures to no more than a 2° rise. Although the report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 equated that with a concentration of 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere, more recent research from our own Hadley centre and NASA's Goddard institute suggests that that might be over-optimistic. That has led the European Commission, in its January communiqué on a post-2012 framework for the spring Environment Ministers Council, to suggest that a 350 ppm CO2 equivalent stabilisation target might be better.
	The third factor is political risk. This is what some people call security of supply, but it is effectively the political risk to which Governments are so acutely sensitive, owing to the fact that they are unable to control a resource that is essential to their economy functioning well. Energy is the lifeblood of the economic body, and the moment it stops flowing is the point at which the economic body begins to die. Perhaps the most striking example of the effect of the convergence of those three factors came earlier this week, when Stephen Tindale, a former head of Greenpeace, announced his conversion to the need for a new generation of nuclear energy plants in the UK.
	I should make it clear that I am not in any way suggesting that the world is about to run out of oil. The International Atomic Energy Agency would suggest that there are enough proven and probable reserves of conventional oil left to supply the world with oil for a further 40 years at current levels of consumption. That is about 2.4 trillion barrels over and above the 1.1 trillion barrels that the world has produced so far. Beyond that, it makes sense to account for new discoveries of fields as yet unknown and for oil sands and oil shales, along with coal to liquids and gas to liquids, which, combined with extra-heavy oil, could account for a further 9 trillion barrels, although at significantly increased production costs, ranging from $50 to $115 a barrel.
	None the less, the IAEA outlook predicts annual production decline from now on, at a rate of 6.7 per cent. It is important to realise that there are significant limiting factors apart from price. We do not seem to be discovering significant new fields quickly enough. Data on existing reserves are suspect, particularly in the middle east, and depletion rates may be more rapid than some Governments are prepared to admit. Unconventional resources such as ocean floor or Arctic oil shales are proving technically more difficult as well as more expensive to develop.
	The oil-producing countries are less willing to export as they increase their own domestic consumption. I think it was King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who said in 2006 of some newly discovered field:
	"Leave it in the ground, Inshallah our children will need it".
	On the one hand, King Abdullah was absolutely right. As global supply is projected to fall from 80 million to 40 million barrels a day by 2030, while global demand is projected to rise to 104 million barrels a day, the shortfall of 64 million barrels is the equivalent of finding six new Saudi Arabias. No doubt in such an scenario, an oilfield or two in the cupboard might prove very profitable for the lucky children. On the other hand, King Abdullah's children will need these resources like a hole in the head, as their release is the equivalent of injecting an extra 13 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year into the atmosphere in 2030—at a time when to stay within our stabilisation targets, we should be achieving a 17-gigatonne-a-year abatement instead. That abatement would be required simply to achieve our 450 ppm target. The 350 ppm target would require reductions far in excess of that level.
	Oil, of course, is comparatively benign in comparison with coal, and the increase in coal generation is perhaps the single most acute threat that we can currently predict with some certainty. It is calculated that more than a third of the total 45 per cent. expansion in world energy demands by 2030 will be supplied by coal. Unless carbon capture and storage can be put in place for all new coal-fired power stations within the next five to eight years, that expansion of coal alone would make it highly unlikely that we could prevent dangerous climate change.
	The Minister knows as well as I do that the current state of CCS technology and the reluctance to invest in it make this potential sequestration route about as reliable as a derivatives banker in a bull market. In her response, I ask my hon. Friend to outline the current time scale on which UK CCS might be rolled out, according to her Department's best estimates.
	Because of the very different rates of emissions that different fuels produce per unit of electricity, I ask my hon. Friend to establish a carbon priority in UK energy policy that would give precedence to lower-carbon fuels and back that up with an appropriate structure of incentives and penalties. I understand the transport premium that oil commands, but she knows that in electricity generation, the ratio between coal, oil and gas is that for every 10 emissions from coal, there are seven from oil and only five from gas. Surely it cannot be right for Government policy to take account only of the financial costs of these different generating methods, and ignore the environmental costs.
	Naturally, I am amazed that significant further investment of Government resources is not being put into the very lowest carbon and renewable technologies. The Government's stated position is that they will not in any way subsidise the new generation of nuclear facilities that this country so desperately needs over the next 15 years simply to replace older stations coming offstream at the end of their production line. That shows a level of complacency that would have qualified any Minister for a seat on the board of RBS over the past few years.
	To meet the UK's increasing energy demands, we need not simply to replace existing power stations, but to install many more new ones. The Government rightly, but not yet adequately, incentivise renewable technologies such as wind and marine power. It is illogical to refuse to do the same for nuclear. That must change. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend's response on that particular point.
	No Member would expect me to speak about energy and climate change without mentioning the essential role that trees and forestry can play in leading the world out of the environmental problems that it faces. Those who are familiar with the McKinsey global abatement cost curve will know that it has identified an abatement potential of 19 GT. What is extraordinary is that of that total, which includes insulation, technological efficiencies, carbon capture and storage and literally hundreds of other components, forest mitigation alone accounts for a massive 6 GT. Most of that forest mitigation comes at a very attractive average price, lower than €15 per tonne. All the forest-based opportunities will have to be taken if the world is to reach even its 450 ppm target.
	The Government have a wood fuel strategy for England. I know that because I was the Minister who produced it. However, it is one thing to have a strategy and quite another to have a programme. The Minister will be aware that the biomass currently available in under-managed broadleaf and conifer woodlands in England is respectively 2.7 and 1.5 million tonnes. If even half that currently available biomass were incorporated in a wood fuel programme, it would save the United Kingdom the equivalent of 3.6 million barrels of crude oil every year.
	According to the Government's own cost-benefit analysis, a pump-priming investment of approximately £120 million—million, not billion—over eight years would show a return of approximately £70 million in carbon benefit during that initial pump-priming period. Thereafter, the benefits over costs would grow to an estimated £35 million each year in savings to the economy. Those figures relate to just half the biomass that we know to be currently available. They do not include the potential for plantation of new woodlands managed for biomass, or even the potential of using sawmill co-product. Significantly, they do not even include what is known as "arboricultural arisings"—the wood that comes from tree pruning and safety operations by highways authorities, 68 per cent. of which currently goes to landfill.
	Given those added sources of biomass, in less than 10 years Britain could have a wood fuel industry that saved it hundreds of millions of pounds and approximately 10 million barrels of crude oil each and every year. That would also improve the biodiversity of much of the woodland in the country. If used strategically, it could also create migration corridors allowing species to adapt to the climate change that is already in the system, as well as a wonderful human resource of rest and relaxation. I ask my hon. Friend to ensure that the Department starts turning that strategy into a programme as soon as possible.
	My intention in recommending a move from a global to a small-scale national programme is to make one essential point. Just as the enormous scale of the global challenge that faces us is not unitary, with peak oil, climate change, population growth to 9 billion by 2050 all combining to create the problems of unsustainability, the nature of the responses that we put into effect must not be unitary. The creation of my hon. Friend's Department was a welcome step forward in Government, bringing together old adversaries from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and cementing them into allies, but in my view it failed to identify the real focus of the problem that we need to tackle.
	The Department is called "Energy and Climate Change", and my hon. Friend lost her old title of Minister for biodiversity when she was transferred to it. It would have been far better for her to bring it with her. The real crisis is one of biodiversity and ecosystems failure, not of climate change. Let me emphasise that, in and of itself, climate change would not matter. The real problem is that biodiversity cannot keep pace with the rate of change, and as a result biodiversity is depleted and ecosystems break down. It is the loss of biodiversity, along with the loss of the ecosystem services that it provides, that represents the real threat to human well-being.
	The economics of biodiversity and ecosystems is a new and difficult enterprise for politicians. We are struggling to identify the true nature of value as we broaden the concept of capital to include not just social capital and human capital, but natural capital. Today, most of the benefits provided to our civilisation by ecosystem services bypass the marketplace, escaping the pricing mechanism, and they are therefore lost to the political and economic process as a mere externality. This inability to capture the value of ecosystem services is the acutest market failure in our world today.
	My hon. Friend the Minister would perhaps laugh if I told her that I had put off upgrading my mobile phone for the past 16 months because a little girl was stung by a jellyfish on a beach in Devon in 2007. However, it is the growing demand for the latest mobile phone that has made coltan so valuable. Mining for this resource has fuelled the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and central Africa. That conflict has led to deforestation. This has seen the loss of habitat and a reduction of forest mammals. That has resulted in an increased demand for an alternative animal protein. That has seen the depletion of high-trophic fish stocks. That has resulted in fishing down the food chain. That has led to blooms of jellyfish, which have replaced fish as the dominant planktivores. And that has resulted in the beaches of south-west England being invaded by jellyfish.
	If climate change teaches us anything, it is that we are interconnected, but our institutional structures have not yet begun to recognise that. Governments around the globe still have mechanisms of intervention and engagement that are segregated and compartmentalised. We have a Department for the environment and a separate Department for international development, when it is clear that it is impossible to achieve the millennium development goals without securing the ecosystem services that provide the poorest 1.4 billion people on this planet with 50 per cent. of their GDP. We have a Treasury that understands over-leveraging of companies and credit bubbles, but that cannot see a connection with a world population consuming resources that the planet takes one year and four months to renew or replace, and a Treasury that refuses to put a value on ecosystem services and sees value only in the context of financial markets.
	I urge my hon. Friend to work across Government silos, to reconnect with her old title as biodiversity Minister and to stop our institutional structures limiting our responses to global problems. We need to stop thinking in fragments and break down the barriers that prevent us from arriving at comprehensive solutions. Planting woods for biofuel is in every way as important a signal that her Department is rising to this challenge as it is a positive contribution to abatement and tackling the problems of peak oil.

Joan Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, on which I regret that I am not briefed. As it falls outside my immediate portfolio, I shall have to take advice and I undertake to write to him on that point.
	Let me turn for a moment to transport, which is the biggest consumer of oil in the UK economy, accounting for about 70 per cent. of total oil consumption. The Government are therefore working towards improving efficiency in the transport sector and within the 2020 EU package to achieve a target of 10 per cent. renewable transport fuels by 2020. The Government are also keen to promote the uptake of new technologies when they arrive and, as part of the recent announcements on transport strategy, we made a commitment of £250 million to deliver consumer incentives to promote electric vehicles.
	My hon. Friend asked in particular about carbon capture and storage. The timetable is that we expect to have a demonstration project operational by 2014 and that we want to see commercially viable CCS in this country by 2020. Indeed, there is a European programme that will assist with that. We are also considering additional policies that will take us from demonstration to deployment.
	My hon. Friend asked about wood fuel and whether the strategy has become a programme. First, let me congratulate him on the development of the wood fuel strategy, which is an incredibly important part of our move from the most energy-intensive uses of energy. Much work is going on around government and I hope that in due course he will be satisfied that we have moved from strategies to programmes.
	On my hon. Friend's point about nuclear, I think that he is very aware, as he suggested, that the legislation has been designed and passed in such a way that it does not create a Government subsidy for the industry. That has obviously been done because the Government believe that the industry will progress and that it will do so on a commercial basis. Of course, that is the assurance that the companies have given over time.
	My hon. Friend spoke of the difficulties of exploiting more difficult oil fields, and the Government and industry are pursuing initiatives to stimulate North sea investment and activity. We are also working to ensure that there is a stable regulatory framework that helps market participants to have the confidence to make necessary investments in the UK continental shelf.
	We know that additional investment will be required in all elements of energy policy to meet demand and to ensure that the lights stay on in this country, but we have to move from a high-carbon economy to a low-carbon economy. The Climate Change Act 2008 gives us the framework we need, with its target of an 80 per cent. reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, consistent with the science whereby developed countries such as ours have to make that effort, if we are to remain within the 2° Celsius limit for temperature increase. I recognise that, even as we continue to exploit our oil reserves, we must prepare for decarbonisation of our energy supply and our homes and make progress in transport. The challenge is huge, but we believe that we have the frameworks and will have the policies we need to tackle it effectively.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.